Alex lives with his parents in a block of flats in a
dystopian England in which his brand of "ultraviolence" is common. At the age of 15, he is already a veteran of state reform institutions (in the film he is a few years older). He spends his days
skipping school and listening to music; at night he terrorises the neighbourhood with his "droogs" Georgie, Pete and Dim. Despite being the youngest of his gang, Alex is the most intelligent and ruthless, so he designates himself as the leader. Georgie resents his high-handedness and begins plotting against him along with the rest of the gang. One night the gang breaks into a house and ties up and beats the owner, and Alex assaults and kills his wife by smashing her face with a bust of Beethoven (in the film it is a sculpture of a penis and testicles). As Alex flees from the house after hearing police sirens, Dim hits him with his chain (a milk bottle in the film) and the gang leaves him to be arrested. Alex is found guilty of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Over the next two years, Alex is a model prisoner, endearing himself to the prison chaplain by studying the Bible. He is especially fond of the passages in the
Old Testament portraying torture and murder. Eventually, prison officials recommend him for the Ludovico Technique, an experimental
forced re-education treatment designed to eliminate criminal impulses. During the treatment, prison doctors inject him with nausea-inducing drugs and make him watch films portraying murder, torture and rape. The treatment
conditions him to associate violent thoughts and feelings with sickness. Alex is particularly affected by watching footage of
Nazi war crimes set to
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, one of his favourite pieces of music; as a result, he can no longer hear it without feeling desperately sick. His sentence is commuted to time served and he is released. Once he returns to society, however, he finds that the treatment worked too well: any thought of violence brings him to his knees with pain, and he cannot defend himself. His parents have rented out his room, rendering him homeless. He is brutalised by his former victims and beaten by Billyboy, a former gang rival (in the film Georgie and Dim, who are now police officers, administer the beating). Alex collapses in front of a house owned by a writer whom the government considers "subversive". The writer is one of the gang's victims, but he does not recognise Alex, who had been wearing a mask as he and his friends beat the man and
gang-raped and killed his wife. When Alex tells him of his plight, the writer promises to help him. However, the writer recognises Alex's voice and speech patterns and realises who he is (in the film he hears Alex singing "
Singin' in the Rain", the very song he had sung while assaulting the couple). He drugs Alex and forces him to listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which causes Alex so much pain that he attempts suicide by jumping out of a window. He survives but is badly injured and wakes up in a state hospital. His parents take him back and the government, smarting from bad publicity, gives him a well-paid job where he can channel his naturally violent tendencies against the enemies of the state. The effects of the Ludovico Technique have worn off, and Alex is his old, ultraviolent self again: "I was cured, all right". While the
film ends here, the novel features an additional chapter in which Alex, now a few years older, has outgrown his sociopathy. While his new "droogs" commit crime sprees, Alex sits them out as he has lost interest in violence. When he runs into Pete at a coffee shop and learns he got married, Alex begins to think about starting a family but worries that his children will inherit his violent tendencies. ==Reception==